Sweat Tips & Concerns
How to Get Pit Stains Out of Shirts (and Prevent Deodorant Marks)
2 Min Read | Date : 01/16/2026
You’re mid-celebration, arms in the air, cheering your team to victory—and then you spot it. A white streak or yellow stain under your arm that steals the spotlight. Whether it's a fresh deodorant mark or an old sweat stain that’s settled in, it’s not exactly a confidence booster.
White marks usually come from your antiperspirant rubbing off on fabric, while yellow pit stains build up over time as sweat reacts with ingredients like aluminum. Both can be tricky to remove, but not impossible. Here’s the lowdown on how to get stains out of your shirts and keep them from showing up again.
Why pit stains happen
White deodorant marks and yellow sweat stains form in different ways, but both are caused by what’s happening between your skin, your deodorant, and your clothes.
White marks are usually caused by deodorant rubbing off onto fabric—especially when it hasn’t dried yet.
Yellow stains are a result of sweat reacting with the aluminum compounds found in many antiperspirants. Over time, these reactions oxidize and set into fabric, especially on light-colored shirts.
Add buildup, heat, and time, and you’ve got a stain that can seem impossible to remove. But it’s not.
